Up on the slopes of Park City, some of the year’s most helpful new releases are playing before rapt crowds. I, once again, abandoned the parka and snow boots to just do another year of virtual Sundance. (More on that next week.)
But if I’m not at Sundance in the flesh, I usually still do some “homework” once the lineup drops. Sure, I’m not watching the next indie breakout at the premiere, but I can be better prepared to write and think about it later by having seen a director’s previous work. In the Before Times, I had this running as a column at /Film for three consecutive years. Now, it’s a newsletter feature!
So, here’s what to watch to get ahead of when the movies playing Sundance this week eventually make it to a theater (or streamer) near you…
Abundant Acreage Available, Peacock (free with ads)
Director Angus MacLachlan will be at the fest this year with A Little Prayer, which stars Jane Levy and features a logline involving an affair that sounds quite clichéd. But I wouldn’t be too worried after seeing his last film, Abundant Acreage Available, which finds rich drama in another simple concept. Two tobacco-farming siblings in North Carolina face a crossroads when their father dies and an opportunity presents itself for the future of their land. While the brother Jesse (Terry Kinney) seems ready to give it up, the sister Tracy (Amy Ryan) fascinatingly digs in her heels.
Bad Education, HBO Max
Cory Finley’s third film Landscape with Invisible Hand premieres at Sundance and promises something wacky and unique that I know I can’t say any better than this sentence does: “A pair of teenagers come up with a plan to ensure their families' futures when an occupying alien race's promise of economic prosperity leaves most of humanity impoverished and desperate.” I’d be incredibly skeptical if it weren’t for how cutting and incisive Finley’s two previous films were about the corrosive nature of wealth, especially Bad Education. He weaves riveting drama and tragedy in the wake of a high school scandal that offers fascinating insight into the nature of suburban competitiveness, especially through the image-obsessed ringleader played by Hugh Jackman.
Feathers, Criterion Channel (also free on YouTube)
It’s easy to see why Focus Features already has the rights to A.V. Rockwell’s feature directorial debut, the foster care drama A Thousand and One, going into the festival. Her short film Feathers (which was acquired by Searchlight) already expressed a command of lyricism and imagery. The evocation of place and its influence on Black masculinity recalls Barry Jenkins’ Moonlight.
Ilo Ilo, free with ads on Freevee through Amazon Prime Video
I’m such a sucker for tender domestic dramas, and Singaporean director Anthony Chen makes them with an affecting grace like few others. We’ll see how his first foray into English-language feature filmmaking goes with Drift, for which he did assemble an impressive cast that includes Alia Shawkat and Cynthia Erivo. But, if nothing else, we’ll always have his debut Ilo Ilo. If there’s any movie on this list I’d implore you to watch, it’d be this touching tale of an indelible bond that forms between an immigrant housekeeper and the troubled 10-year-old in her care.
Little Men, HBO Max (through 1/31)
Something tells me Ira Sachs’ Sundance premiere Passages, a love triangle drama featuring three of the hottest performers across the pond, won’t bear a ton of resemblance to the sweet sincerity of his PG-rated Little Men. But this is one that should not be missed, even if I did at my first Sundance Film Festival back in 2016. Through the perspective of a blossoming friendship between two young boys in Brooklyn, Sachs tells an affecting tale that translates the abstract force of gentrification into palpably personal terms.
The Maid, free with ads on Tubi
You never really know what you’re going to get from Chilean director Sebastián Silva, whose output is really just all over the place … and now brings us a comedy (maybe mockumentary?) featuring social media comedian Jordan Firstman? Okay. Hopefully it’s not too navel-gazing and more in the vein of The Maid, a savage capitalistic critique centering around the increasingly vicious domestic worker Raquel. Silva finds delicious comedy and rich commentary as the titular character tries to fend off two younger replacements from taking her cushy gig with a wealthy family.
The Mole Agent, Hulu
Maite Alberdi is back at Sundance with The Eternal Memory, a documentary about a couple dealing with the effects of Alzheimer’s. But if that sounds impossibly depressing and unappealing, the director has tackled senility with respect and levity once before in her previous Sundance hit The Mole Agent. What starts off as a noir-ish detective story featuring an octagenarian investigator within a nursing home ultimately evolves into a tale of comfort and compassion for the residents. It’s one of the most unique and welcome tonal swings I’ve ever experienced.
Nettles, Criterion Channel
Raven Jackson already has her Sundance selection All Dirt Roads Taste of Salt set with distribution at A24, presumptively on the strength of her short Nettles. This is a really remarkable work that has more to say in 20 minutes than most features do in 2 hours. Jackson’s multi-chapter short feels remarkably full and achieves its storytelling aims with remarkable efficiency as it captures seminal moments in the lives of six women. There’s a grace in capturing fleeting moments that might not feel significant at first glance. But Jackson slowly martial camera placement, character blocking, and montage into a potent cumulative effect. It’s the poetry of everyday life brought to life before our eyes.
Please Give, rental
Maybe one day, I’ll write a whole newsletter on my love for writer/director Nicole Holofcener, who’s at the festival premiering her latest collaboration with Julia Louis-Dreyfus called You Hurt My Feelings. Holofcener does a version of “write what you know” — namely, well-off and well-meaning white women — that can both understand her characters’ struggles and place them in a larger context without feeling demeaning. Please Give might be her masterpiece as it deftly charts an emotional odyssey of white liberal guilt in contemporary New York City.
Rich Hill, free with ads on Tubi
Documentarian Tracy Droz Tragos will undoubtedly have one of the most topical movies of Sundance with Plan C, a documentary following a grassroots group trying to facilitate access to abortion medication after the Dobbs decision. While there’s obviously a place for such urgent immediacy, I do hope she brings some of the same timeless touch she gave to her previous work Rich Hill. This unvarnished look at rural life in the Midwest captures the poverty and the poignancy of the childhood experience in equal measure. I still think about how remarkably she strikes a tough balance of seeing the children’s world as it is while also portraying how they see it for themselves.
You can always keep up with my film-watching in real-time on the app Letterboxd. I’ve also compiled every movie I’ve ever recommended through this newsletter via a list on the platform as well.
A lot of myself! I was the guest on last week’s Truth & Movies podcast discussing my two favorite girlbosses, TÁR and M3GAN, along with Bob Fosse’s singular sensation All That Jazz. Give it a listen — I think it’s a great conversation.
Also, I’ve been weirdly hooked on French garage music (think a genre straddling the generational divide somewhere between disco and EDM) after rewatching Mia Hansen-Løve’s Eden last week — the soundtrack slaps:
In case I didn’t make it clear enough that I think you should read the above, here’s a selection of great articles to read about TÁR (which is now available to rent should you want to join the conversation):
Tavi Gevinson writes about the relationship between art and artist for The New Yorker
Zadie Smith reads the film as Gen X psychodrama for the New York Review of Books
A profile of filmmaker Todd Field in — where else — The New Yorker that attempts to pinpoint how Lydia Tár got her EGOT
Elsewhere from the final days of Oscar nominations campaigning, it’s worth reading two dispatches from wild turns: Rolling Stone talks about how a Corsage hater is trying to sabotage its chances, and IndieWire breaks down the last-minute Astroturfed celebrity campaign for Andrea Riseborough.
For Slant Magazine, I interviewed Jesse Eisenberg — primarily about his directorial debut When You Finish Saving the World (which opened last Sundance and hits theaters tomorrow). But we also touched on his recent role in Fleishman Is in Trouble, among many other things.
I was really nervous about this one, partly because of how Eisenberg can be a bit prickly in interviews and partly because of how central he is to one of my all-time favorite movies. But I think it’s a wonderful, illuminating conversation where we really clicked!
For Decider, I said stream it to Mrs. Harris Goes to Paris (on Peacock) as well as Paris, 13th District (on Hulu) and The Pez Outlaw (on Netflix). I give a big skip it to Sick (on Peacock).
Subscribers will get a breakdown of three French dramas about labor relations that have flown sadly under the radar, featuring an interview with the director who made them all.
Yours in service and cinema,
Marshall